Manny Pacquiao vs. Keith Thurman is proving to be a success on many fronts.
The Nevada State Athletic Commission revealed that the July 20 PBC on FOX pay-per-view from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas drew a live gate of $6,260,275 with 11,436 tickets sold. While there were 1,675 complimentary tickets handed out for the event, that is still short of the attendance announced during the show which was 14,356.
While the official attendance wasn't groundbreaking, early numbers on the pay-per-view sales are certainly more than promising. According to Mike Coppinger of The Athletic, the pay-per-view generated in the neighborhood of 500,000 buys.
If that figure were to stick, not only would it be the highest buyrate for a pay-per-view this year, but also the most for a pro boxing fight in the United States since September 2018 when Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin had their rematch which did at least a million buys.
Pacquiao won a close, entertaining fight by split decision to capture the WBA "Super" welterweight title, extending his win streak to three fights while also handing Thurman his first pro loss. This was also Pacquiao's second straight fight on pay-per-view and second since signing a multi-fight deal with PBC. The first fight, which was handled by Showtime and not FOX, saw Pacquiao beat Adrien Broner in the main event. That fight reportedly did close to 400,000 buys.
FOX's next pay-per-view will take place at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on September 28. The main event will be a welterweight title unification between IBF titleholder Errol Spence Jr. and WBC titleholder Shawn Porter while the co-main event is a WBC super middleweight title bout between Anthony Dirrell and David Benavidez.
